It’s time to ban cats from going outdoors
As a study finds that pets kill 27m birds a year, Joe Shute says we must shut away our feline friends
According to Rudyard Kipling, all animals were once wild; but the cat was the wildest of them all. As Kipling told it in the Just So story of “The Cat that Walked by Himself ”, while gradually the likes of horses, cattle, sheep and dogs were tamed by humans into a life of cosy domesticity, felines remained resolutely feral.
Well, this, O my Best Beloved, is a story of how cats are continuing to run wild – and how in order to protect dwindling bird populations, their days of freedom may soon be numbered.
Yesterday, it was reported that the red list of Britain’s most endangered bird species has been extended to 70, a figure that has doubled in 25 years and now accounts for more than a quarter of the 245 species overall in the UK.
Wider factors are accelerating the decline; chiefly, habitat loss, climate change and crashing insect populations on which birds depend. Many of the new red-list additions – the likes of swifts, house martins or Bewick’s swans – will rarely, if ever, be troubled by a cat.
But at the same time, worrying drops in the populations of previously abundant garden birds mean some are starting to question the true scale of the damage being wreaked by our moggies: by day, dozing and docile; by night, lethal agents of chaos stalking the chrysanthemum beds.
Earlier this week, councillors in the Australian city of Fremantle even voted in favour of banning cats from venturing outdoors unless they are tethered by a lead. “In the 1970s, dogs would roam our streets, and I expect roaming cats will also become a thing of the past,” warned one of the councillors who tabled the proposals.
Anyone who has ever owned a cat (if such a thing is possible for a creature of such inscrutability) will have guiltily wondered exactly how many animals they kill? Cats regularly “gift” owners presents of dead, or dying, birds, mice, rats and (from harrowing personal experience) frogs.
Supporters of cats say they only kill sickly birds which would have died anyway. However, a recent study from the Mammal Society suggested British cats are killing 27 million birds a year: the most common victims being house sparrows, blue tits, blackbirds and starlings.
For the past decade or so, Mark Fellowes, a professor of ecology at Reading University and his team have been analysing the impact of cats on UK wildlife. Extrapolating
figures from a study of suburban cats in Reading, Prof Fellowes says the UK’S 10.5 million pet cats could be killing up to one million animals a week.
While wood mice are their favourite prey, birds are also commonly taken. He has even seen video footage of cats bringing a critically endangered hazel dormouse through the catflap.
He says there is a paradox at play, whereby we entice birds into our gardens with food at the same time as nurturing a predator highly skilled at killing them. Indeed, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, domestic cats have been ranked among the 100 worst non-native species in the world threatening biodiversity.
“People own cats because they love animals,” Prof Fellowes says. “But it is about using common sense.”
Those seeking to minimise the carnage do not have to go as far as what is being suggested in Australia. Bells on collars act as an effective early-warning system, while only allowing cats out at night (when birds are roosting) can also help protect them.
With the average cat roaming some 300m from its home, Prof Fellowes and his team are also currently investigating whether the tactical planting of some species can act as a natural barrier reducing the animals’ range. Spiky pyracantha, for example, whose berries are beloved of that newly red-listed garden bird, the greenfinch, are effective at keeping out cats. So, too, conifers and dense grasses, which cats dislike clambering through.
Beyond feline prevention, there is more we can all do to stop the looming birdmaggedon in our midst. Regularly cleaning feeders will help prevent the spread of the lethal disease trichomonosis, which is proving especially deadly among greenfinches.
A lack of suitable nesting spaces, meanwhile, is affecting species such as swifts and house martins. Organisations such as the Totley Swift Group in Sheffield are working to retrofit suburban homes with specialist nesting boxes and have installed more than 90 in the past two years.
Another vital thing we can all do is to install a pond of any size in our gardens. The smallest body of water will dramatically boost ecosystems, encouraging insect life and offering a regular spot for birds to drink and bathe.
Plus, as any cat aficionado will tell you, even the most malevolent of mousers will scarper at the mere thought of getting wet.